Child soldier

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Symbolic child soldiers for the Assad Army in the Syrian Civil War
Child soldier in the Civil War

Child soldiers are children who take part in a war. According to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child of 1989, child soldiers are all those under the age of 15 who are directly involved in hostilities. An optional additional protocol to the convention from 2002 raises the minimum age for conscripted soldiers of the ratifying states to 18 years, volunteer recruits older than 14 years are still legal under international law. Occasionally, from other sources, non-combatants from armed groups as well as all young people under the age of 18 are counted as child soldiers.

UNICEF , terre des hommes and Amnesty International refer to “all fighters and their helpers who are under 18 years of age” as “child soldiers”.

According to the Cape Town Principles of 1997, not only minors fighting members of armed units should be regarded as child soldiers, but also porters, informants, cooks, girls forced into prostitution , etc. This broad definition is intended to ensure better protection of children and access to them in the event of demobilization to grant relief efforts. The associated classification as combatant status on the one hand legitimizes combat operations against unarmed minors, but also enables them to be treated legally according to the principles of the POWs, and makes it more difficult for children to be misused as living shields in strategically important operating bases.

Recruitment and engagement

Children and teenagers are generally easier to recruit than adults. Usually they are forcibly recruited, but young people in particular occasionally join voluntarily armed groups. As a rule, child soldiers come from poor sections of the population; many have been separated from their parents as a result of the war and are looking for protection; they are children from refugee and displaced persons camps or street children . Under these circumstances, the war appears to young people as an opportunity to secure their livelihood, to bring them social recognition, and possibly a feeling of power that they would never have as unarmed. Some seek revenge because an enemy has killed loved ones.

These children and adolescents are exposed to similar stresses as adult soldiers, but are usually more susceptible to ideological indoctrination and intimidating disciplinary measures and are often more willing to take risks . Child soldiers are often used in wars in which mainly small arms are used without extensive training. In fact, their use today is largely due to the advancement of weapon technology: Many of the handguns used today neither require great physical strength nor do they require sophisticated training. Children are also often used to move or disarm landmines . Girls are often forced into prostitution or forced or coerced into sex relationships or marriages with soldiers.

statistics

According to the so-called Machel Report of the UN , around 300,000 children were involved in conflicts under arms in 1996. Today the number of child soldiers is estimated at around 250,000. More than 50 armed groups, mostly from Africa, are known to use child soldiers. About two in three child soldiers are boys. Olara Ottuno, the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative for Children in Armed Conflict, estimates that between 1990 and 2000, around two million children fell, six million children were disabled and ten million children suffered severe mental harm.

In Uganda , around 90 percent of the Lord's Resistance Army were young people between the ages of 13 and 16. Over 12,000 boys and girls were forcibly recruited. Around 20,000 child soldiers fought in Liberia during the civil war from 1989 to 1997. Nine-year-olds are said to have been recruited. There were 6,845 soldiers under the age of 18 in Sierra Leone between 1991 and 2002.

The Child Soldiers International (formerly Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers) has launched a World Report on child soldiers of 2004. It documents the defense laws of all countries and names those armed groups that recruit children and young people and use them in combat. Myanmar (Burma) is one of the countries with the highest number of child soldiers in the world .

A study by Christopher Blattman from Columbia University and Jeannie Annan of the International Rescue Committee , according succeeded after the end of the civil war in the Ivory Coast , the reintegration of child soldiers and veterans in the Liberian society, if they are there, a professional perspective was offered. This effect was detectable even when the professional reintegration resulted in less than a tenth of a mercenary's income .

Countermeasures

One of the sharpest critics of the use of child soldiers is the South African Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu .

There is an international day against the use of child soldiers . It is organized by the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers , based in London, every year on February 12th and is not (yet) an official UN day.

The Additional Protocol of June 8, 1977 to the Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949 on the Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed Conflicts (Protocol II) prohibits children under the age of 15 "from being integrated into armed forces or armed groups" or from "participating in." To allow hostilities ”.

In the UN Optional Protocol on Children in Armed Conflict (Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child with regard to the Participation of Children in Armed Conflict) of May 25, 2000, it was agreed that children under the age of 18 may not be evacuated. Exceptions are allowed in the recruitment of volunteers for the state armed forces, the age limit for them has been set at 16 years under pressure from the UK , US , Russia and China . 167 states have ratified this additional protocol so far (as of June 2018). The Federal Republic of Germany has also ratified this additional protocol and accepts 17-year-old volunteer applicants into the Bundeswehr ; their number rose from 689 in 2011 to 2,128 in 2017.

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague stipulated that the recruitment of under-15s is a war crime and will be prosecuted. Thomas Lubanga , founder and leader of the armed militia Union des Patriotes Congolais in the Democratic Republic of the Congo , was charged with this crime before the ICC in August 2006. He is the first defendant in the history of the court.

The International Labor Organization (ILO) stipulated in its resolution 182 that the use of children as soldiers is an extreme form of exploitative child labor . Nevertheless, the flight of minors before forced recruitment is not considered a reason for asylum in the Federal Republic of Germany ; former child soldiers are usually given the status of a Duldung . A detailed documentation was published by terre des hommes, entitled “Former child soldiers as asylum seekers in Germany”.

In 2007, George W. Bush signed a law prohibiting the US from providing military aid to countries where there are still child soldiers. However, President Obama made use of the exception clause in October 2010 so that the US can continue to support countries with child soldiers.

history

Young German soldier as a prisoner of war, March 26, 1945 on the Lower Rhine
15-year-old of the French Legion , 1942 in Russia
Memorial to the child soldier Marat Kasej in Minsk

Child soldiers are not inventions of the modern age. Horse boys , i.e. young grooms, have probably been part of the cavalry since there were mounted troops. Emperor Caligula owes its name to the footwear he wore as a teenager in the Roman army.

Literary characters have survived from the Thirty Years' War ( Gustav Adolfs Page , Der adventurliche Simplicissimus ). A representation of the fine arts shows a child soldier from the Napoleonic Wars . There is a photograph of a child soldier during the American Civil War.

During the Second World War adolescents were deployed as air force helpers, the Waffen-SS recruited young people, in the last phase of the war the Hitler Youth fought in the Volkssturm , and some were awarded the Iron Cross . Child soldiers were also used on the Soviet side. In Japan , during the final phase on Okinawa, school groups were set up as auxiliary troops, which in the case of boys in the so-called Tekketsu Kinnōtai carried out pioneering, reporting, but also combat activities, while in the case of girls they performed hospital service.

Organizations against the use of child soldiers
  • Between January and December 2011, the UN had a “List of Shame” compiled under the direction of Special Envoy Radhika Coomaraswamy and in June 2012 published the “Annual Report of the Secretary-General on Children and Armed Conflict”. It lists 52 parties to the conflict (from terror networks such as al-Qaida in Iraq to militias such as the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in Uganda) and documents the most serious violations of children's rights in wars and armed conflicts in 23 countries. In order to be removed from the list, the denounced armies or militias must go through a fixed UN program.

Exhibitions

There have been some exhibitions about child soldiers in the past. An exhibition was organized by the aid organization terre des hommes . It ran from June 17 to July 7, 2003 in Münster with the title “Children in Armed Conflicts”. 16 posters with the theme “Children in War” were exhibited there, showing examples of countries from terre des hommes' project work on the subject of children in war.

The documentary “ Lost Children ” about child soldiers in northern Uganda was shown in several German cinemas.

literature

  • Ishmael Beah : Return to Life. I was a child soldier. Campus, Frankfurt am Main et al. 2007, ISBN 978-3-593-38264-7 .
  • Rachel Brett, Margaret McCallinn: Children - The Invisible Soldiers. Book on demand. GR Alberts, o. O. 2001, ISBN 3-8311-2641-0 .
  • Dittmar Dahlmann (ed.): Children and young people in war and revolution. From the Thirty Years War to the child soldiers of Africa. (= War in History , Volume 7). Schöningh, Paderborn et al. 2000, ISBN 3-506-74476-3 .
  • Alcinda Honwana: Child Soldiers in Africa. (= The ethnography of political violence ). University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia 2006, ISBN 0-8122-3911-3 (English).
  • Uzodinma Iweala : You should be a beast! (= Meridians 119). Ammann, Zurich 2008, ISBN 978-3-250-60119-7 .
  • China Keitetsi : They took my mother and gave me a rifle. My life as a child soldier. (= Ullstein 36481). Ullstein-Verlag, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-548-36481-0 .
  • China Keitetsi: Tears between heaven and earth. My way back to life. ( Ullstein 37244). Ullstein-Verlag, Berlin 2009, ISBN 3-548-37244-9 .
  • Senait G. Mehari : Fireheart. Droemer-Verlag, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-426-27341-1 .
  • Michael Pittwald: Child Soldiers, New Wars and Markets of Violence. (= Edition Sozio-Publishing 213). 2nd revised and expanded edition. Sozio-Publishing, Belm-Vehre 2008, ISBN 978-3-935431-13-2 .
  • Annette Rehrl: "They forced me to kill". Africa's lost children. (= Knaur pocket books 77850). Knaur-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-426-77850-5 .
  • Margit R. Schmid, Alice Schmid : "I killed people". When children go to war. Lamuv, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-88977-599-3 .
  • Manuel Werner: Power and helplessness of young air force helpers - an example from the air base and concentration camp Echterdingen / Filder. In: Werner Aldinger: Through fascination for power - the fascination of power. Building blocks for the relationship between power and manipulation. Handouts for teaching . State Center for Civic Education Baden-Württemberg / Educators Committee of the Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation Stuttgart 2003.

Movies

  • Blood Diamond : Film about the civil war and blood diamonds in Sierra Leone and the forced recruitment of child soldiers
  • I killed people (J'ai tué, I killed): Alice Schmid, documentary, 26 min, Liberia 1999
  • Lost Children : Documentary about the child soldiers in Northern Uganda
  • Beasts of No Nation : Film about a fictional civil war in Africa from the perspective of a child soldier

Web links

Commons : Child Soldiers  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: Child soldier  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Cape Town Principles and Best Practices. (PDF) UNICEF, April 1997, p. 8 , accessed on February 10, 2011 (English).
  2. ^ Impact of Armed Conflict on Children
  3. ↑ Child soldiers. Archived from the original on January 16, 2014 ; Retrieved October 23, 2013 .
  4. ↑ Violence: Of men and mayhem, in: Special Report - The Young, January 23rd 2016, The Economist , January 23rd – 29th 2016, 10–11.
  5. ↑ https://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=IV-11-b&chapter=4&clang=_en
  6. ↑ Bundeswehr - the number of underage recruits is increasing. SPIEGEL ONLINE, January 9, 2018, accessed January 9, 2018 .
  7. ^ Child Soldiers Prevention Act
  8. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento from July 12, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  9. ↑ childsoldiersglobalreport.org ( Memento of March 7, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  10. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento from April 4, 2018 in the Internet Archive )
  11. ^ Members. Archived from the original on March 25, 2010 ; Retrieved July 9, 2010 .
  12. ↑ UNICEF: http://www.unicef.de/5493.html
  13. ↑ University of Kassel: http://www.ag-friedensforschung.de/themen/Kindersoldaten/tdh4.html
  14. ^ Children's rights in the United Nations. Federal Foreign Office, April 26, 2010, accessed on March 22, 2011 .
  15. ↑ RP-Online: https://web.archive.org/web/20140110003553/http://www.rp-online.de/politik/ausland/mit-roten-haenden-gegen-kindersoldaten-aid-1.2295580
  16. ↑ ZDF: heute.de ( Memento from July 13, 2010 on WebCite )
  17. ↑ Focus: http://www.focus.de/panorama/vermischtes/birma-birma-hat-250-000-kindersoldaten_aid_303405.html
  18. ↑ Magdeburger Nachrichten: Aid organization welcomes UN Security Council decision to outlaw violence against children ( Memento from September 15, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
  19. ↑ http://www.un.org/children/conflict/english
  20. ↑ spiegel.de June 12, 2012: [1]